And best of all – nobody got hurt!
It was 2 a.m. and I was just drifting off to sleep when I was jolted awake by the shrill beeping of a smoke alarm. It was so loud that I was sure it was in my own apartment (which is pretty small) – so I got out of bed, staggered around in the darkness, blind for a moment … got the glasses on … turned on lights … and realized that it WASN’T in my apartment, it was out in the hall.
The thing was LOUD, man.
I normally sleep so deeply that you have to shout directly into my ear to get me up.
But this alarm pierced through.
So I go out into the hallway. It is 2 am. The smoke alarm is BLARING. But there is no smell of smoke, or anything burning.
Others throughout the building were also woken up by the smoke alarm (everyone except the super who basically HID IN HIS APARTMENT). We had all been woken up. We all stood around, wondering what to do. We were all in our pajamas.
I went down into the cellar to see if anything was burning … nothing. I knocked on the door of the super’s apartment. No answer. I knew he was in there!
The noise was deafening. People were milling about, talking, laughing. I met people I had never met before.
We decided, after having a pajama-clad conference, that we should call 911.
So I went back into my apartment and called 911. Gave the address, told them it wasn’t an emergency, but there was a smoke alarm going off, and it should be checked out.
2 cops showed up in, no lie, 5 minutes. They had called the fire department.
The super still had not shown his face.
I stood in the lobby, chatting with the cops. I was in my pajamas, with my crazy sleepy hair, and my chunky glasses, and my slippers. Somehow, we started talking about Eminem’s new album, and how psyched we were for it. We became dear friends in about 25 seconds.
But here comes the fantasy part.
Within 10 minutes, 2 fire trucks pulled up, and we were then OVERRUN WITH FIREMEN. Firemen were IN MY APARTMENT, firemen were tramping up and down the stairwells, firemen were going down into the basement, firemen were checking the fuse boxes, firemen were calling up and down the stairs to each other … They were in their black firemen gear with the neon stripes, they had the hats, the axes … there were probably 15 of them.
I have never had so much fun in my entire life.
I was in my pajamas.
But I was in my glory.
I showed the firemen around. I showed them the problematic smoke alarm. I openly bitched about the super. I let them into my apartment. Since this obviously wasn’t a burning building or any kind of life-threatening moment, the firemen were pretty chilled out. They all lolled about in my kitchen.
One of them suddenly looked up from his work and said, “Who here is wearing ‘Sierra’?”
I’m still laughing about that. I was the only girl, standing there with five firemen and he has to ask who here is wearing Sierra?
I said, “God, I’m sorry. It’s obviously me. Is it too strong?”
“Oh, no, no. Are you kiddin’ me? I love ‘Sierra’! It brings back great memories …” It felt like he could have launched into some nostalgic monologue about ‘Sierra’ and what it meant to him emotionally.
And yet he was a guy in FULL FIREMAN GEAR, standing on a CHAIR in my hallway.
I felt like I suddenly had 15 boyfriends.
There were so many firemen that many of them didn’t have much to do. So a couple of the tenants stood outside in the freezing night, shooting the breeze with them. It was totally normal that I was in my pajamas and they were in gigantic industrial outfits.
The “battalion chief” was there – a big beefy guy – and he took care of things. They located the issue (a faulty smoke alarm … this took about 20 minutes of fiddling to figure out what the problem was) – they took down the name of the super – they told us everything would be fine, but to let the landlord know such and such …
And then … just as quickly as they had arrived … they all tromped away.
I miss them already.
For a minute there I though this was going to turn into a Penthouse letter.
“I was lounging around in my pajamas when a hot burly fireman burst into my apartment, his hose at the ready.”
The smell of Sierra and Virginia Slim Lights menthol will always be a reminder of losing my virginity(heterosexually, anyway)!!! God….i wish we still lived together..as a team they wouldn’t have left until earliest the next afternoon!
Awesome. The same thing happened to me the other night: the smoke alarm went off, and after about 10 minutes there were all these cute waitresses and barmaids and … uh … they … um … we all … oh, never mind.
There are never any hot firewomen, are there. It’s so wrong.
You just need to be big and burly if you are going to drag 200 pound men out of a raging inferno. Sorry, hot babes – unless you can do that, you can’t put on that gear.
That scrumpdiddlyumptious firemen gear.
However, Linus – that’s a pretty funny image. The flip-side of the typical female fireman fantasy.
MJF: I know. I wish we still lived together, too.
These guys were the kinds of guys we love. Big, manly, take-care-of-it goofballs.
If you had been with me, we would have ended up getting a ride on the firetruck, and then we would have played pool with them until sunrise.
Oh, Sheila, you made me remember my own firefighter fantasy story:
It was about ten years ago. I was living at the time in Palm Springs in the pool cabana of a huge estate. There was nobody in the main house – just me and this fabulous pool. It was the hottest day of the summer – 126 degrees, really! I was floating in the (hot) pool, naked as usual, wondering what the hell I was doing trying to live in such an inhospitable environment, when I heard a WHOOOSH! and looked up – the entire top of one of the poolside palm trees had spontaneously ignited. It was one of the most astounding sites I’ve ever seen, a huge fire at the top of a long trunk, blazing in the bright blue sky on a hot hot day.
Suddenly I’m in a biblical epic, with a burning bush. I’m expecting Moses to appear on the diving board. Still in the pool, I call 911 on my cell phone and report my fire. “Uh, ahhh, uh, seems a palm tree is on fire here.”
Minutes later, a huge hook-n-ladder pulls up, with maybe six or seven firefighters in full gear. I’m still in the pool, figuring it’s the safest place for me, surrounded by water. The guys come charging to the pool just in time to see the fire snuff itself out, all of them staring up at what now resembles a smokestack. These guys were wearing 40-pound coats and helmets on the hottest day of the year.
As soon as they see that the fire is out and their services are no longer required, they unhook their heavy jackets, open them up and they drop to the poolside floor. Each one of them is wearing a skin-tight fireproof union suit, biege, glistening with sweat. My jaw dropped.
“Mind if we jump in?” says the FF #1. “Not at all!” I say, trying not to sound too much like Vincent Price in a beach party movie (“Would you boys like some lemonade?”).
In seconds, they’re all in the pool, union suits and all, splashing and diving and cooling off. I had that same sense of out-of-bodyness that you did, “Is this really happening?”. It was such an unexpected moment, such a fantasy, these gorgeous firefighting MEN splashing around my pool.
They stayed maybe two minutes, then one by one stepped out of the pool, with their wet, biege union suits clinging to their buff bods, shimmering in the sun. Whew! They didn’t need towels – it was so hot they were dry in a minute. They climbed back onto the truck, and with a chorus of thanks, pulled away.
Oh my. For days I wanted to “drop by” the station house with some brownies or something, anything to extend the experience. Never did.
May you enjoy your firefighter encounter as much as I’ve enjoyed mine over the years! And PS – I’m glad you’re safe, Sierra girl.
Stevie:
I just completely lived that story of yours vicariously. I LIVED IT.
Vincent Price in a beach party movie … still laughing …
Now yours, Stevie, reads like a Penthouse letter! Much more so than mine. Except for maybe the guy noticing my perfume.
Sheila — First, the good news about Zellwegger. Second, YOUR men in gray boots. Look out tonight: you know, things come in three’s.
Shaila, your story is plenty hot! And scented besides! Admittedly, I do relive my moment whenever I smell charred palm.
Wow, Bud. The “man with the grey boots”. Sudden tears in my eyes. I remember our email exchange from way back then.
I’ll never forget that guy in my whole life. The man with the grey boots. Sorry – he’s really present for me right now, with your comment!
one word: OFF-I-SAAAA
Pretty funny red…
It’s unfair that there’s no equivalent fantasy for men… There’s pretty much no scenario in which dozens of hot chicks wearing weird industrial outfits might come to my house.
But it reminds me of a story – about the closest I’ll get to that scenario. I was visiting a friend who was in law school, sitting in her apartment.
We smell smoke. I and my friend’s boyfriend investigate while my friend calls 911. We find smoke coming out from under the door of the apartment above us, and the door is too hot to touch. We kick the door in and find a raging inferno. We yell into the apartment/inferno, and if there’s anyone in there, they appear to be, literally, toast (there wasn’t – but they left the coffee maker on).
We go to the apartment next door, which appears to be about to burn up as well, and knock on the door. There’s no answer, so we kick that one in as well. Inside we find 4 hot babes, who are oblivious.
We tell them the apartment building is burning down (which it subsequently does) and they should leave. They say “You’re not firemen, are you?”, in a very disappointed tone.
Sheila, the flip-side of the typical female fireman fantasy is the typical male NURSE fantasy.
We really need to get you a digital camera so you can move into photo-blogging. A combination post with pajamas and bed-hair ought to bring in several thousand page-views. (Not to mention a few requests for autographs.)
CW:
There’s too much that is funny about what you just wrote that I can barely laugh right now.
“dozens of hot chicks wearing weird industrial outfits might come to my house”
HAHAHA
Oh, man.
homebru:
Trust me. I looked like hell. But I had on left-over ‘Sierra’ – and that made all the difference.
homebru:
On my walk to the bus station, I pass a porn-shop, and I have seen an entire display of videos dedicated to the nurse-fantasy of which you speak.
Nurses totally don’t motivate me, but maybe I just haven’t been sick often enough.
Waitresses, now, don’t get me started.
Yep, that’s the fantasy.
So far, my hospital experiences have resulted in nothing like that. Maybe if I was a fireman.
The problem with the nurse fantasy is that you have to be either a doctor or a patient to take advantage of it.
Since I avoid organized health care like the plague, the whole nurse thing doesn’t really work out. Besides, these days nurses just wear very frumpy-looking “scrubs” – the stylish white outfits are gone, I think.
the flip-side of the typical female fireman fantasy is the typical male NURSE fantasy.
You fantasize about male nurses?
Hey, I have the fireman fantasy, too.
But in my hometown, the firemen were all Slavic lingerie models. Strange aberration. Great fantasy.
mitch:
Excellent. You are a lucky man.
Linus:
Is it cocktail waitresses or like diner waitresses? Or do you not care?
Most of the guys I’ve known, or dated, or been friends with all have the sleeping-with-two-women-at-the-same-time-semi-lesbian-voyeuristic fantasy. So while many guys do not have the medical fantasy, that other one appears to be a given.
Generally speaking.
Heheh. As soon as I read “smoke alarm” I knew that firemen were gonna be in the picture.
Dave E.:
HA!! I’m still kind of buzzing from my encounter with all of them … all of them stomping through my door.
(sigh.)
CW:
True, but there’s always the option of just playing make-believe.
“Okay, you pretend to be sick, and I’ll pretend to be the dominating HOT nurse comin’ at ya with a thermometer…”
If you’re into that sort of thing. :)
” soon as I read “smoke alarm” I knew that firemen were gonna be in the picture.”
HEADLINE: LOCAL ACTRESS TAKES UP SMOKY HOBBIES
heh heh heh
That reminds me:
I have to stop wearing flannel pajamas and fuzzy slippers and start wearing see-thru nighties and fishnets.
Heh.
Well, I’m officially worthless for the rest of the work day :-)
A funny story along these lines happened to a friend of mine… 2 couples were hanging out one winter evening.. and decided to have a little fun with together.. they started a fire in the fireplace.. and then got someone got out some whipped cream. Things got a little out of hand and they all four ended up in the shower together. Unfortunately, in their excitement, they had forgotten to open the flue… smoke was filling the apartment and billowing out under the door. Someone called the fire department, who came and kicked the door in. Searching for occupants, they found the two couples naked in the shower together